


(blank) (white space)

by Archistratego



Series: (///)(white///) [2]
Category: Alien Series, Alien: Covenant, Aliens (1986), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Thrawn - Timothy Zahn
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Spot The Reference, Unconventional POV, What Have I Done, by which i mean xenomorph pov, implied crushes and pinning, intentionally bad grammar, sort of, sort of au crossover dumpster fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 11:29:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11274519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archistratego/pseuds/Archistratego
Summary: To win you must categorise the origins of the threat heading in your direction, this the Chiss know. Eli Vanto is just coming to understand what is hiding in deep space. He wishes he could remain blind.Chronologically takes place before (indistinct)(white noise); how Eli Vanto came to know all there is to know about Xenomorphs.





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**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for: Thrawn(novel) and Alien Covenant. I'm taking liberties with both Star Wars and Alien canon. 
> 
> Thank you to my beta reader beanie. Kudos and comments are appreciated!

eli vanto is sure he did not sign up for this when he accepted thrawn’s proposal. or perhaps he had, subconsciously, known it all along, and his instinct of self-preservation had become an atrophied muscle where thrawn was involved. even the word felt rather _inadequate._

wild space — these depths far beyond the reach of the empire are an ongoing adventure that results in an accumulation of scars, and memories. he’s come so close to being maimed on a daily basis. he's traversed ruins that are too old to date despite the carefully kept chiss archives. he's seen the wastelands of a planet called fu04, the numbers carefully entered into his datapad as he and his team measure the readings left behind.

whatever happened here was cruel, and the ravages of time have not been kind to the ashen corpses bent in supplication to a merciless god. 

ozymandias. david.

the name makes a shudder crawl up his spine despite the warm weather, f0-u4 was kind once — the type of location that would require no terraforming for colonisation, far more welcoming than jakku or tattoine. beneath there was the promise of metal, doonium, that the empire paid exorbitant sums for.

and yet, eli hoped that no living being decided to settle here — ever. especially not the empire because whatever originated here was — is — terrifying. he doesn't need an in-depth study to understand what the chiss are concerned about emerging from unknown space to known regions.

there is an unquestionably cold logistic to the organisation of the chiss military, akin to the empire, and yet having been thrawn's ensign for years is higher credentials than if he had come here sporting admiral bars across his neatly ironed shirt. eli feels a surge of affection at the thought of his _boss_ before turning a carefully carved instrument in gloved hands.

it's human bone.

eli feels like throwing up breakfast.

  


* * *

  


[a guttural sound. narrow vision.

two, two, two — (raw) mouth.

warm, **scritch scratch scritch scratch** along a narrow tunnel.

warm. rows of blooming eggs give way to skittering legs across;

scream calls to like. beacon follow. narrow vision.

pale light: orbital planets in motion. yellow light: warning. beacon follow.

cold rush then f a l l i n g. nothingnothing — ]

  


* * *

  


lv-426 has a crater the size of a small moon. whoever — whatever, eli corrects his notes — was here has been pulverised, the crater is unnatural and certainly not a natural occurrence. it can only be surmised that whoever was here, whatever they found was — he deletes again — whoever was here did not mean for anything of the site to remain. whatever they found might have been forbidden or hazardous.

the chiss reading over his shoulder gives a snort, "hazardous is an interesting word choice, vanto." eli looks up, he can understand them now: the emotions that flit across their faces subtle compared to other species. there is nothing but amusement in the thin line of her mouth, the gentle tilt of her head, the red eyes.

once upon a time eli would've seen nothing in that stance. he's come a long way since thrawn and he knows it. still, his memories are insufficient, could he read thrawn now? or was he, even among his people, an enigma too? 

eli doesn't expect to see thrawn for a long time.

he's not exactly wrong.

  


* * *

  


[ _—nothingnothingnothingnothingnothingnothingnothing_

 

  


(a space where instinct goes blank)

  


 

 _nothingnothingnothing—_ ]

  


* * *

  


"these creatures you are looking for can survive in open space, floating and dormant until they find purchase on a ship." the chiss is wearing a mask that covers three fourths of his face, there is only one red eye staring at him. his age lingers over him despite the straight posture and commanding tone.

"i see, sir." eli winces at his choice of words, averts his eyes, and makes a carefully addition to his report.

"at least, that one came on board that way before i airlocked it." the memories that fall around those words cause the chiss to hunch slightly, phantom physical pains straining him, "i know admiral ar’alani wants a full report, but we were miners - what were we supposed to do? this was years ago, before the dawn of your failed republic." 

eli knows the details from memory, not that there had been much to memorise from the skeletal report he was given access to. there had not been much of a follow up, it had not been deemed important then: an unknown hostile, killed six out of a crew of seven before being unceremoniously dumped into space. after that, nothing but theories as to what it could have been.

unknown space was far too vast to focus on chasing what seemed to be an anomaly. until a mournful song echoed across galaxies and was picked up by one of the defense fleet's stations.

"perhaps," the chiss speaks in a measured mantra he has clearly rehearsed in front of the mirror daily, "it was the only one left of its kind."

eli tries to keep his face from betraying what he knows, but there are things about him he cannot change - training or not. there is a boyish earnestness to him that cannot be extracted by military training (it is the type of innocence that inhabits deep inside, carefully shielded by ribs and having set home inside the heart; the type that only heartbreak could wound). 

"ah. i see." such a simple acknowledgement of a horrific truth: it was not the only one of its kind, it was but one of a branch of things that were lethal. "before you go, eli vanto, i'd like to make a recommendation to the defense fleet." the chiss unlatches the hook keeping his mask in place, a void like a black hole beneath — 

(eli wants to scream, mouth open, sound caught in the bile that rises)

"kill every last one."

  


* * *

  


[they were made from the black liquid. primordial matter to them. a weapon to their god. they were made and remade, not in his image, but in one greater.

gurgle. fogged up broken station windows. colonising is agonisingly simple.

(Nest). (Infect). (Spread).

survive. secure. _queenqueenqueenqueen._

no screams. no air.

wall = (more Them)]

  


* * *

  


"are you sure—"

"i know you're concerned, lieutenant commander vanto, but those concerns are unfounded." admiral ar’alani levelled a look, "thrawn—" (and it irked eli to hear his name so casually uttered) "—did not send you here to fail, he sent you because he is certain of _your_ success."

eli swallows. succeeding is the greater evil in this scenario; he thinks of the chiss carrying the scars of his encounter: some secrets ought to remain lost in unknown space. and hearing these words from ar’alani lift the oppressive hand that had been slowly twisting his lungs.

because self-doubt is an inevitable characteristic eli holds; it is wired to his core; the reason anxiety rises when thrawn’s name comes up — 

(how to forget he was not first choice but the second, not quite on the level of nightswan. eli can’t compete with the ghost of a man who left behind an unspoken standard. nightswan’s death had left an empty space inside eli that wore the name of jealousy) 

— but he beat nightswan because eli still breathes and ( **grand admiral** )thrawn believe _s_ in him. it is not a true victory. it’s hollow, but eli will take the comfort.

  


* * *

  


[too preoccupied looking ahead. if they would look behind: orange, in an alphabet from a planet far, far away: **the sleep of reason produces monster // CH3M1C4L 40-EPS9X.——**. 

a crew: all neat military uniforms, red eyed, blue skin. one exception of pink skin; evolution taught them well to select the best biological carrier: pink, soft, breakable, so very, very human. 

see jaw within jaw, wet, skeletal tail, one of many. they have intruded on a nest, they found what they were looking for. legion — 

 

(eli has two clear thoughts through the haze of combat. first, the chiss’ words had been wishful thinking. second, he is going to die) 

 

— chaos a battlefield.]

  


* * *

  


at night, eli dreams of the world coming undone under: a shower of red light, the scratch against metal, his chest ripped in half — a death so sudden there is no time for understanding. dying unaware; knowing that your death is a certainty; gambling to lose all. that last thought swims in his mind as he rises towards the surface of consciousness. 

his back feels on fire: one, two, three slashes. even if he were inclined to move eli would be unable to, stuck as he finds himself onto the wall, an unwelcome warm, humid air making his sweat soaked hair stick against his skin. around him, scattered in an irregular formation were eggs, coated with filaments of something akin to saliva. damp like the criss crossing membrane trapping him.

this is where he is going to die.

  


* * *

  


[ _ **this** is sleeping inside the bowels of debris_

_((teeth))_

_((teeth))_

_((teeth))_ ]


End file.
